Thursday, April 13, 2006

Another new word -- Perpetraitor

Perpetraitor, (Per"pe*tra`tor), n.

~ a jingo, esp. one in a cloak (preferably a flag) of patriotism committing treasonous crimes against their own country while wreaking murder and mayhem on other nations, all in the name of security and their deity.

5 comments:

I like it! Of course, there must also be a "perpetraitress" (and we all know who that is) unless that's too sexist, or if the person in question no longer retains any vestige of femininty. And I wonder if it's possible to be perpetraitorous, so we could use it as an adjective? D.K.

THE BEGINNING IS NEAR

HUH?

You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, "Look at that, you son of a bitch."

— Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 astronaut, People magazine, 8 April 1974.

"Keep in mind that this planet is no model for rational thought, and that what passes for sanity here is sending chills down the spine of the remainder of the universe." E.T. 101

"An Empire’s power depends on its ability to control the cultural stories and language that shape our collective understanding of our world and our choices as a species. Empire stories induce a kind of cultural trance that conditions us to accept the dominator relations of Empire as just and righteous and to dismiss talk of alternatives as naïve, dangerous, or even sinful." ~ David Korten